Essay on The Scientific Revolution and The Enlightenment

The Scientific revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries changed the way that people views the world. Scientific philosophers such as Galileo and Descartes threw out the old teachings of the church and challenged them with new ways of thinking. These men sought to prove that rational thought could prove the existence of God. They also challenged that it was an understanding of a series of rational thoughts, not faith, would bring understanding of how the world worked. Traditional ways of thinking were ultimately challenged by logical and sensible rationale. Galileo Galilei was an Italian philosopher born in 1564. As an adult, he didn’t believe the universal geocentric theory of the planets and heavens which was established by the†¦show more content†¦Galileo stepped backed and worked on a book, which gave the arguments that for and against the heliocentric theory. When he finally published the book, he was persecuted for heresy by the Catholic Church and sentenced to house arrest in 1663. While under house arrest, he did studies on falling object and their acceleration to the earth. The Catholic Church later apologized and acknowledged that Galileo was treated unfairly in 1992.There is now a statue of Galileo inside the Vatican as a monument and an attempt to make amends. Scientifically, Galileo will be remembered for invention of the telescope, which allowed astronomers, sailors and other view the heavens and seas, which fed their own theories. He used his own invention to discover the four moons of Jupiter, the mountains and craters of the moon, and sunspots. His work on falling objects led to gravitational studies and mathematical theorems which are on a basic level, physics. Experimentation was used as a means to prove the laws of science along with the mathematical theories. Math, according to Galileo, was the only infallible form of logic. If a mathematical law could be formed from an event, then it was a logical, rational event. His brea king from the Catholic Church, voicing his findings and staying with his convictions broke the traditional way of thinking that the Church was the end all and be all of all things. In the end, he was proven right for most of his beliefs and vindicated for his suppression.Show MoreRelatedThe Scientific Revolution And Enlightenment1267 Words   |  6 PagesThe Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment, which spanned from the late 1500’s to 1700’s, shaped today’s modern world through disregarding past information and seeking answers on their own through the scientific method and other techniques created during the Enlightenment. Newton’s ‘Philsophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica’ and Diderot’s Encyclopedia were both composed of characteristics that developed this time period through the desire to understand all life, humans are capable of understandingRead MoreThe Scientific Revolution And The Enlightenment1528 Words   |  7 Pagesp lace known as the Enlightenment. During this movement enlightenment thinkers, or philosophers, argued that they must focus on the use of reason and secularism to better themselves and understand the universe. As the sciences became more popular, skepticism about religious grew. A significant root of the Enlightenment was the Scientific Revolution (1500-1700) which pressed the use of reasoning, inquiry, and scientific method in order to arrive that the truth. The scientific revolution was an attemptRead MoreThe Enlightenment And The Scientific Revolution1128 Words   |  5 Pagesthe Renaissance, Humanism and Individualism, the Scientific Revolution, John Locke, and the Age of Discovery, and Religious Wars, the Enlightenment in Europe sparked a movement of change and progress. During the Enlightenment, humans were focused on improving their lives and letting go of or expanding on ancient texts that had set the previous standards. The Scientific Revolution was one event that provided a sturdy foundation to the Enlightenment by having solid evidence of things in the world beingRead MoreThe Enlightenment And The Enlightenment During The Scientific Revolution1686 Words   |  7 Pages â€Å"Have the courage to use your own intelligence! Is therefore the motto of the Enlightenment,† (Kant). The Enlightenment consisted of the ideas of nature, reason, progress, and optimism. Sir Isaac Newton, a scientist during the Scientific Revolution , greatly influenced the Enlightenment due to his stance on natural law. The idea of a social contract, where the power to govern came from the consent of the governed, was a major force during this time period. Adam Smith, a physiocrat from Great BritainRead MoreThe Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment Essay1696 Words   |  7 Pagesparallels between ideas of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment This essay will explore parallels between the ideas of the scientific revolution and the enlightenment. The scientific revolution describes a time when great changes occurred in the way the universe was viewed, d through the advances of sciences during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The enlightenment refers to a movement that grew out of the new scientific ideas of the revolution that occurred in the late seventeenthRead MoreThe Age Of Enlightenment And The Scientific Revolution1675 Words   |  7 Pagesthe society and the world evolved giving rise to the establishment of new social norms and scientific advances. Although the industrial revolution and the scientific revolution represented a giant leap forward in human development, the Age of Enlightenment delivered the greatest influence for the future American society and planted the way for cultural and humanistic enrichment. The Age of the Enlightenment raised new concepts in education, democracy, and human freedom. The new humanistic philosophyRead MoreEssay on Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment903 Words   |  4 PagesDiscuss the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment along with the subsequent reaction as embodied by the Romantic movement. Give specific examples of how these movements affected the arts. What was their eventual impact on the western intellectual world. The Scientific revolution and The Enlightenment period overlapped by a hundred years and were co-occurring between 1650-1750. The Scientific Revolution happening first and beginning around 1600, was a period of time when new ideas and toolsRead MoreThe Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution: Essay1835 Words   |  8 PagesThe Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution: Men of Ideas Creating Change Nicole Hill The eighteenth century is often referred to as the Enlightenment. The ideas of many individuals combined to create a movement that would not only sweep across Europe, but reach as far as the Americas. The idea of a world without caste, class or institutionalized crudity was what many were striving to achieve. Coinciding with the Enlightenment was the Scientific Revolution. Advancements in astronomy, technologyRead More The Scientific Revolution and The Enlightenment Essay1004 Words   |  5 PagesThe Scientific Revolution and The Enlightenment In the 17th Century, there was much controversy between religion and science. The church supported a single worldview that God’s creation was the center of the universe. The kings and rulers were set in their ways to set the people’s minds to believe this and to never question it. From these ideas, the Enlightenment was bred from the Scientific Revolution. Nicholas Copernicus was the first to question the universal truths and teachings of theRead MoreThe Enlightenment, Scientific Revolution And The Industrial Revolution889 Words   |  4 PagesThe Impacts of Evolution Through the Enlightenment, Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution philosophers and scientists were able to define and study many ideas and ideologies. These time periods of social and scientific reform allowed for the definition of evolution to be defined as, â€Å"the process of continuous branching and diversification from the common trunks.† Evolution though did not begin then, it began at the start of this universe. We as humans would not be here if it werent

The Incarceration Rate For Women - 1978 Words

Australia has witnessed a gradual and undeniable increase in imprisonment rates for women in the last twenty years. Representing the plight of criminalized and imprisoned women is not a straightforward task. These women do not share a single lived experience, nor do they reflect a neat and simplistic narrative of individual redemption. Drawing public attention to the predicament of criminalization and imprisonment in women allows us to understand the of rising incarceration rates and what reasons may account for this growth in female incarceration rates and how it affects policy makers in their attempts to address challenges. In recent years, the rates for women being imprisoned in Australia have significantly risen, with many factors contributing to this greater increase in the rate for female prisoners compared to male prisoners. From 1995 to 2002, a 60 percent increase in rate per 100,000 was recorded (Karen Gelb 2003), with women making up seven percent of Australia s total prisoner population, as stated by Fiona Dowsley, the ABS director of the National Centre for Crime and Justice Statistics. According to the annual Prisoners in Australia report in 2012, the number of women incarcerated increased by 48 percent since 2002. It is necessary to identify the issues that affect women which account for the surge in imprisonment of women. Recent studies have suggested that the main factor of the rise of imprisonment is the sentencing practice itself considering womenShow MoreRelatedRacism: Incarceration of a Household Member and Hispanic Health Disparities1344 Words   |  6 Pagesand how the incarcera tion rates are skewed towards African American men. The reasons for the incarceration rate disparity are argued and different between races, but history points out and starts to show the reason of why the disparity began. Families and children of the incarcerated are adversely affected due to the discrimination as well as the discrimination against African American students and their likelihood of going to prison compared to the white student. African American women are also affectedRead MoreThe Inequality Of The Prison Population Essay1429 Words   |  6 Pagesperson there (Wynn, 2012). She later found that ninety percent of the inmates were black or Hispanic (Wynn, 2012) and that ninety three percent were male (Wynn, 2012). Although not as large as black men, there has also been an increase of minority women imprisonment. This racial disproportion was not always this way. During World War II, whites consisted of seventy percent of inmates and only thirty percent were identified a s â€Å"others† (Martense, 2012). This has been reversed now being that seventyRead MoreMale And Female Sentencing : A Look Into Alternative Sentencing1274 Words   |  6 PagesLook into Alternative Sentencing Ritchey, Christian American Military University Author Note This paper was prepared for CRMJ201. Abstract With incarceration rates rising and jail and prison populations at an all-time high, alternative sentencing is being used more often with non-violent offenders. This paper looks at male and female incarceration rates, the use of alternative programs for sentencing between the two and the effectiveness of such programs. During the paper we will analyze sentencingRead MoreThe American Justice System Is Corrupt1536 Words   |  7 Pageswhen it s for petty stuff like writing a bad check. Some stuff is understandable like murder or other stuff, but some is outrageous. The American prison population has been absolutely ridiculous; it s crazy for the U.S. To have such high prison rates. The more you know about it the more frustrating it gets, and if you ask almost anyone you would think so too. The only people who might agree are big business s owners like American Express and Bank of American. The American justice system is corruptRead MoreThe Impact Of Mass Incarceration On African Ameri cans1019 Words   |  5 PagesAmerican youth will experience a parent’s incarceration. Research has shown that children of incarcerated parents experience emotional problems, socioeconomic problems, and cognitive disturbances (Miller, 2007). In this paper, I will discuss the impact of mass incarceration in the African American community and its effect on African American children. Incidence and Prevalence Until the 1970’s America was on par with Germany and France in incarceration rates (Campbell, Vogel, Williams, 2015) HoweverRead MoreObesity Is A Major Public Health Issue917 Words   |  4 Pagesknown to have the following characteristics: low socioeconomic status, limited access to healthcare prior to incarceration, low health literacy, substance abuse, mental health disorders and increased probability of having chronic and infectious diseases. These characteristics make inmates a vulnerable population even prior to incarceration. Recent studies of weight change during incarceration have revealed that individuals diagnosed with chronic disease, such as diabetes or hypertension, do not haveRead MoreThe United States : A Growing Problem With Women1553 Words   |  7 PagesStates has a growing problem with women in the criminal justice system. There has been a dramatic increase of women since the 1980’s. In addition, the increase of women has brought mothers into t he equation. Pregnant mothers who are allowed to keep their newborn while incarcerated has been theorized to have many positive results. Including a higher chance of a positive reentry, allow bonding time between the mother and her child, and easing the pain of their incarceration. Laws vary from state to stateRead MoreWomen1623 Words   |  7 Pagespost-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). According to Lewis (2006), the cause of high rates of symptoms of PTSD in incarcerated females is likely to do the fact the most female inmates have experienced or been victims of physical abuse, sexual abuse, or both, prior to being incarcerated. In addition to traumatic stress, anxiety and phobias, Drapalski’s (2009) research indicated that women reported significantly high rates of drug associated problems. Female inmates were more likely to seek treatment inRead MoreThe American Criminal Justice System1398 Words   |  6 Pageswould be the fact that we have the highest incarceration rat e of any other country, the high penalties for drug users, as well as the jury system. The high incarceration rates and the penalties for drug users affect each other but they are still issues on their own. In fact, many of issues within our system coincide within each other. Addressing the incarceration rate issue, since 2002 the United States of America has had the largest incarceration rate in the world. Other countries have hoveredRead MoreMass Incarceration And Its Effects On Society1492 Words   |  6 Pagessocietal and economic damage caused by America’s now-40-year experiment in locking up vast numbers of its citizens. (The Editorial Board) The standard way of thinking about mass incarceration has it that mass incarceration is putting a stop to crimes. Today it has become common to dismiss the truth about mass incarceration. The Editorial Board of New York Times Magazine acknowledge that America`s imprisonment population has progressed to about 2.2 million (the Editorial Board). The Editorial Board

Ethical Ripples of Creativity and Innovation †Free Samples to Student

Question: Discuss about the Ethical Ripples of Creativity and Innovation. Answer: The statement The best interface for the system is no user interface can be ideally related to the elimination of the interface that are directly related to the users. This technique is initially done during the implementation of the aspects of technology by eliminating the user interface. The main role is played by the security system of the organization Management as well as for the benefit of the citizens. The most crucial is to identify the challenges regarding the security system of the organization, ensuring the availability and continuity prospective along with the provision of the services that are already been or will be served by the Internet of Things. The main purpose is to avoid the interruptions and operations that are associated with potential failure. This kind of approaches can be used for elimination of various processes during the interfacing schedule. The non-user interface can be directly beneficial as there are fewer steps involved in the process and this may result in decreasing the time related aspects are well. The concept can be justified by the following example: Example 1: RFID code readers and backend servers have the communication channels which has been assumed from the previous cases studies. However there are some problems which has been considered as potential risk in the field of concern for the transactions in the field of ATM. Thus the implementation of the RFID in this field has been found to be helpful in terms of future perspective (Mulani Pingle, 2016). Example 2: By taking an example of a remote control device that has been installed in mobile phone like an app by which the car can be accessed from anywhere near or far. This Android app can be installed by the user, which has to be downloaded first and then accessed by user name and password and other security steps. Specifications of Cables: Cable types Bandwidth Distance Interference rating Cost Security Twisted Pair Cable 1MHz 100m Susceptible to interference but limited to a distance Cheapest Poor Security Coaxial Cable 1GHz 500m Least susceptible to interference than others Medium cost compared to others Moderate security but can be breached Fiber Optic Cable 75 THz 2Km (multimode) 10km (Single-mode) Not susceptible to EMI More Expensive Highly secured Categories of Cables: Twisted Pair Cable Co-Axial cable Fiber Optic Cable 1. Unprotected Twisted-Pair (UTP) Type 1: Used in low speed data cable and telephone lines. Type 2: These can support 4 mps implementation Type3: These cables support maximum 16 mps but commonly used in 10 mps 2. Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) Type 1: Features 22-AWG two pairs. Type 2: Inherit type 1 with 4 telephone pairs Type 3: Features two pairs of shielded 26-AWG Type 1: 50-Ohm RG-7 or RG-11, applicable with thick Ethernet. Type 2: 50-Ohm RG-58, applicable with thin Ethernet (Ha et al., 2013). Type 3: 75-Ohm RG-59, applicable with cable television. Type 1: Hard line Type 2: Radiating Type 3: RG-6 Type 4: Triaxial cable Type 5: Twin-axial cable Type 6: Semi-rigid Type 7: Rigid line Type 8: Cables used in the UK Summarized Table of Advantages, Disadvantages and Application of IoT IoT Devices Advantages Disadvantages Application Sensors It is not affected by atmospheric dust, rain, snow. It can also work in adverse conditions if proper power supply management is given. In comparison with inductive or capacitive proximity sensors it has more sensing distance. It seems difficult to receive signal reflected from curved, small, thin and soft objects. Smart sleep system. Smart washing machine. Smart lightning. Weather monitoring. Blood Pressure monitoring (Tozlu et al., 2012). Smart internet mirror. RFID Tag code data is 100% secure and cannot be duplicated. Availability of large number of sizes, different types and different materials. Physical contact is not needed between the communication devices and data carrier. Tags can be used many times. The rate of error is extremely low. Portable data base and long read range. These are more expensive than Barcode system. Harder to understand results in less reliability. Longer than the Barcode labels. Specific applications for tagging, does not fits to all. Many Tags can respond in the mean time. In product tracking high frequency RFID tags are used such as, pallet tracking, jewellery tracking, airline baggage and apparel and pharmaceutical tracking (Gubbi et al., 2013). Implantable RFID are used in animal identification. Replacement of library barcodes with RFID Tags. It has also application in museum, school and universities. Video Tracking Communication between devices. Automation and control. Collects information. Monitoring is another advantage of video tracking Better quality of livelihood. There is not any compatibility of international standard for the monitoring equipments. More complex system which can increase the risk of failures. Privacy and security both will be exposed. Human-computer interaction. Augmentation of reality. Medical imaging. Video communication. The privacy and security issues regarding IoT company products there are few things that should be kept in companys consideration. 1) Considering an assessment of privacy and security; 2) the data collection and retain must be minimized; 3) the security measure must be tested before the launch of the product (Kranz, 2016). Hence the company should build security into the devices at the outset. The companies should train the employees good security service that can be provided and retain the service management provided which are capable of maintaining a secure service provider. Blocking Mode: In this mode, the operational request generated the end point would have to wait in the order to get respond of its request made after the initialization of the end point operation and its completion which involves long or may be termed as waiting point with respect to the originator asynchronous massage would be received by the originator since it is a synchronous. Publish/Subscribe Paradigm: This refers to as the pub/sub which enables the communication in order of unidirectional between the publishers with regards to the one subscriber. Due to the effect of the unnecessary messages which are traveling in the reverse direction of the flow of data, the Respose/Command response changes to a suboptimal state. Nielsons Law: User Bandwidth increases up to 60% every year which is less than Moores Law related to speed of computer. This new law fits data from the time period of 1983 to 2016. Nielsons Law which directly relates to internet bandwidth is states as, a high-end users bandwidth connection speed grows by average 50% per year. Nielsons law is very similar to Moores law but more established than that. Moore stated that computer double in capabilities every 18 months, which is related with 60% of annual growth (Kumar et al., 2017). Implication of Nelsons law in IoT: In 2024, it has been expected that the use of sensor technology will surpass through the trillion sensor which will help in the creation of data streams virtually from every surrounding surfaces (Bonomi et al., 2017). Sensors will be soon get embedded inside auto mobiles, residential houses and even in clothes. Microchips will become a trend including body sensors or skin sensors References Bonomi, F., Milito, R., Zhu, J., Addepalli, S. (2017, August). Fog computing and its role in the internet of things. In Proceedings of the first edition of the MCC workshop on Mobile cloud computing (pp. 13-16). ACM. Bui, N. (2016). Internet of Things. Cui, X. (2016). The internet of things. In Ethical Ripples of Creativity and Innovation (pp. 61-68). Palgrave Macmillan, London. Kranz, M. (2016). Building the Internet of Things: Implement New Business Models Management, Disrupt Competitors, Transform Your Industry. John Wiley Sons. Kumar, M., Bhaskar, M. S., Padmanaban, S., Siano, P., Blaabjerg, F., Leonowicz, Z. (2017, June). Electric field analysis of extra high voltage (EHV) underground cables using finite element method. In Environment and Electrical Engineering and 2017 IEEE Industrial and Commercial Power Systems Europe (EEEIC/ICPS Europe), 2017 IEEE International Conference on (pp. 1-4). IEEE. Li, S., Da Xu, L. (2017). Securing the Internet of Things. Syngress. McKernan, K. J. (2016). The chloroplast genome hidden in plain sight, open access publishing and anti-fragile distributed data sources. Mitochondrial DNA Part A, 27(6), 4518-4519. Mulani, T. T., Pingle, S. V. (2016). Internet of things. International Research Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 2(3).

Sony Corporation Essays - Electric Vehicle Industry, Sony

Sony Corporation History: In January of 1958, the already well-known and successful Japanese electronics company, Totsuko, adopted Sony as its new corporate name. This new name, Sony, was an original brand name that was originally applied on Totsuko products. Even though Sony is well known for being a leader in audio-visual electronics and information technology for consumers at home, they also have reached out to larger businesses worldwide. In 1978 they formed Sony Broadcast Ltd., which focused on providing broadcast stations the best, quality products and services. This branch of the Sony Corporation is still very successful today. Sony has gone on to form a chemical corporation as well, which can provide physicians, doctors, and researchers with certain measuring and necessary tools. Product Mix: Sony Corporations product mix is comprised of many different products targeted towards many different market segments. Almost every Sony product though can be placed under the category of electronics. They sell products and services globally such as televisions, VCRs, stereos, computers, memory devices, video game systems, digital and non-digital cameras and camcorders, Lithium batteries, fingerprint ID units, certain measuring equipment, and even shatter proof film for glass through their chemical corporation. Workforce: The workforce of the Sony Corporation is very large. For the fiscal year that ended on March 31, 2001, it was estimated that 181,800 total people were employed for the Sony Corporation. Of this total, 23,000 employees are currently working in U.S. plants and offices. There are major research and development and engineering facilities in the U.S. located in California, New York, and Colorado with manufacturing facilities being located in the same locations in addition to Alabama, New Jersey, Texas, Oregon, and Indiana. Future Outlook: Today Sony is a leading music company, motion picture company, television production company, manufacturer of game consoles, and inventor of many new professional products such as VAIO personal computers. With Sony being listed in sixteen stock exchanges worldwide, the corporation is growing rapidly every day. With sales on the rise within the past five years as well, expect Sony not to slow down in the market of electronic products and services anytime soon. Business

Stock Analysis free essay sample

This section of my analysis includes descriptive statistics, charts, tables, correlation analysis, ration analysis and financial statement analysis during the period of which the data is collected. Moreover, I’ve tried to align the numerical data to the practical events and consequences that I’ve been studying during the period, which might help to make better evaluation. Descriptive Statistics and Financial Analysis From January 18-th to March 2-nd the stock has been growing constantly from 427USD to 544USD (average), and the difference between the mean and median for this period is relatively low which is a good indication. The core of the Apple’s operation is the innovation based new products, but the newly introduced IPAD did not satisfy the customer’s and experts’ expectation. On the 13-th of February their stock price exceeded 500USD for the first time. Financial Statement Analysis Financial Statements analyzed for this assignment includes Unaudited Consolidated Condensed Balance Sheet, Statement of Cash Flow and Income Statement that are downloaded from http://investor. We will write a custom essay sample on Stock Analysis or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page apple. com/financials. cfm. (APPENDIX II) In January 18, 2011, Apple announced financial results for its fiscal 2011 first quarter ended December 25, 2010. The Company posted record revenue of $26. 74 billion and record net quarterly profit of $6 billion, or $6. 43 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $15. 68 billion and net quarterly profit of $3. 38 billion, or $3. 67 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 38. 5 percent compared to 40. 9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter’s revenue. Combining the financial statement numbers with the real number of devices and laptops they sold, would give clear understanding of how they generate the revenue and what is the basis of the growth. Apple sold 4. 13 million Macs during the quarter, a 23 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 16. 24 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 86 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 19. 45 million iPods during the quarter, representing a seven percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company also sold 7. 33 million iPads during the quarter. Their total liabilities is 3 times less than their total assets which indicates how healthy their operations is. Ratio Analysis This section will include financial ratio analysis for Apple as well as provide forecasted financial statements for the upcoming ten years. The ratios will supply the overall profitability, liquidity (short-term solvency), and capital structure (long-term solvency) for Apple. The major purpose of using financial data in ratio form is making the results comparable across firms and over time by controlling for size. After computing the selected ratios, we will be able to compare Apple to its top competitors within the technology industry, and against the overall industry average. Analysis of these ratios is important to numerous parties, but for our purposes, it will provide information not so easily derived or transparent in the financial statements. According to Appendix III, their inventory turn-over ration is 67. 4, which measures the inventory management efficiency of their business. The ratio is relatively high which may result in loss of sales due to inventory shortage which does not often happen for Apple Inc. But based on the circumstances related to the Foxxconn, inventory shortage may face the corporation. Risk Analysis Looking at the data I’ve collected for this assignment, I’d definitely say that Apple stock is well work to purchase. But there were ups and downs until their stock finally reached 500 for the very first time. There was a lot to do with leadership that defines the path of the company which makes it distinguished from the others. For trading purposes, Apple stock would definitely increase to the certain point in the next couple of months but after that It might stabilize. But for investors Apple Inc. is still the best innovative IT company in the world. The reason why stock rate might stabilize is that newly introduced IPAD and IPHONE didn’t satisfy customers’ and experts expectation for one step ahead innovation. So there is a clear doubt that how many people would replace their IPHONE 4 and IPAD 2 to the newly presented products with almost the same features. In addition their BETA rate is 1. 04 on average which is lower than Apple’s main competitors Samsung, Sony or Dell. And it clearly has better ratios and other financial facts compared to those. So Apple Inc’s stock is not risk free, but would be a good investment just for a certain period of time. Conclusion The most interesting thing about Apple is how they are very innovative and early adapters. Apple is usually the first company to come out with a new product line before anyone else. This is very risky but it is one of their main characteristics. A large portion of Apple’s fate comes from cash flow and professional trading activity that are directly attached to their product sales. As long as they apply innovative technologies in their products and make sure their products satisfies customers’ demand they would still be on the top of the industry. Appendixes

Tragedy and Devastation

Tragedy and Devastation Since the beginning of time, our world has been gripped by tragedy and devastation. We have watched destruction unfold as the tsunami, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the war in Iraq shook our nation to the core. All of these events have left a scar on the face of humanity and an emptiness in our hearts.On December 26, 2004, the hopes, dreams and lives of many were washed away in the Indian Ocean tsunami. Tsunamis are formed by the violent movements of the earth‚s plates sending mass amounts of water in every direction. These destructive waves destroyed 12 Indian Ocean coastline countries. This natural disaster destroyed what little some people had, and stole the lives of loved ones. These waved claimed approximately 150,000 lives in 12 countries. They took people out of their homes, swept them out to sea and destroyed everything they owned. The tsunami is indeed a destructive event that the world has been forced to witness.Countries in which Islamist terrorist attacks have... The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 was the worst act of terrorism the United States has ever seen. While the world viewed the tragedy of these acts of hatred, we searched for the words to express our feelings, but for most of us, we were left speechless. Roughly 27 hundred people lost their lives that fateful day. Although this terrible event happened 5 years ago, families and friends still feel the emptiness and the loss. Not only did this event destroy landmarks, but it destroyed lives, dreams, and the hearts of the ones they left behind. This is definitely a devastating moment in time.In hopes to calm the fears of future terrorist attacks, the United States forged ahead in war. However, the attempt to help us, only hurts Iraq and its people. During this war, families were...

Organisational Change Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 1

Organisational Change Management - Essay Example Organization structure shows the expressed allocation of responsibilities for different functions and processes to different entities like branches, its departments, workgroups and individuals. There are two most common organization structures known as vertical and horizontal structures. In case study there is vertical organizational structure as everyone has to be accountable to upper management for their doings and they have to obey all policies and rules made by them no matter they are favorable for them or not. Key issues that organization is facing: This case study is about a French car component manufacturing that has two plants operating in France, Spain and UK. D2’s focuses is on having perfect return on investment and have growth in shareholders’ value. But over recent years D2 is facing a lot of problems and issue that hinders its growth. Recent economic downturn has a bad impact on demand and D2 has to struggle a lot for its survival. This is because of reces sion in business cycle, which represents a general slowdown in activities related to economy. D2 is facing problems in capacity utilization and generation of profits as it need investments and has to cut down its cost to certain level. There is widespread drop in spending of the industry that is called as an adverse demand shock. D2 has decided to stop producing some components and to concentrate the production of other components at fewer sites in order to benefit from economies of scale. D2 will face so many problems when this decision would be announced because its plant’s workers are expecting D2 to invest highly in manufacturing departments of the D2 as many of the plants of French car component manufacturing are out-dated. Another problem is that D2 is not working to utilize its capacity up to the mark. Production expansion by the D2 is not up to the standards. D2 cannot produce as much as it needs to produce because of its outdated plants. UK plant has to face closure because of its outdated technology. Production expansion is required through Blois in France because Blois has the most advanced technology in it and provides the opportunity to the D2 to have expansion in production and survive and grow. The new strategy will involve expanding production at the D2’s main factory at Blois in France. Production is to be expanded in Blois because Blois has the most advanced manufacturing technology and the factory is not yet working to capacity. It is anticipated that increasing production at Blois will lead to a significant reduction in costs. Product development is needed in didcot (UK). D2 would be facing redundancy when it would announce these strategy and framework for product development and production expansion because these workers have no idea of using latest technology as they were playing with outdated version of technology and these employees and workers would be having no way to switch to other plants as other plants are operating in advanced technology. D2 is expecting another problem that many of the D2 product developme

Combating Sex-trafficking in the United States Term Paper

Combating Sex-trafficking in the United States - Term Paper Example In today's modern, civilized society, a world where human rights are given such considerable emphasis and so many laws, acts and bills have been passed to protect those rights, it seems that slavery would be a forgotten and lost concept. Sadly however this is not true. Slavery in every sense of its meaning is still alive, whether it be in the form of exploiting humans for forced labor, or more prevalently, as members of a world wide illegal sex trade and trafficking industry. Statistics from the International Labor Office show that there are 12.3 million victims of forced labor and commercial sex trafficking trade throughout the world at any given time. Shocking as those figures are, what is more shocking is that many of these human sex slaves are employed in fully legal trade rings, such as legalized prostitution or pornography. This happens not in one country or two, but in countries all over the world, the United States included. Are the laws that legalize prostitution and pornogr aphy contributing towards the promotion and encouragement of sex trafficking and commercialized sex trade? Furthermore, if there are laws that encourage these industries, where do these victims find their sanctuary? These are the questions this paper aims to investigate and to argue that the only way sex trafficking victims can be kept away from the industry, even if the industry itself is not shut down, is through effective communication between the ICE, the local police and social workers. Human trafficking is a practice prevalent all across the world. There might be differences in the way the humans are marketed or transported but ultimately it all follows the same process. The victim is lured into the trader's ring under false pretenses or promises of a bright future in another country, through lawful, legal employment. Once the victim agrees and the process of transporting them begins, their legal documents are taken from them and they start to be blackmailed, with threats of d eportation, arrest, violence or safety. Helpless, the victims have to follow the orders of their captors which often translate to joining either the forced labor trade or the sex trade. The female and children victims of human-trafficking mostly end up in brothels, some of which are legal, which clearly indicates that legalized prostitution and sex-trafficking are linked (Kara, 2008). Why is then that nothing is being done to separate those who are voluntarily in the industry and those who are forced into it? The prime reason for that is probably a lack of understanding and communication. Authorities feel that most sex workers that work in legal brothels or pornography have a way to earn a living without having the necessary qualifications to work in other jobs. Another reason this illegal trade employs these victims is that it is one of the most profitable criminal activities, generating an estimated $9.5 billion each year. Because they want the industry to expand, they hire these victims illegally, making it the third most profitable destination for them, with first and second being drugs and weapons trafficking respectively but according to observers, within ten years, human trafficking will surpass drugs and weapons trafficking to become the most profitable criminal activity in the world. As said in Kara's book, '†¦the most effective measures to eradicate the global sex trafficking industry are those that reduce the aggregate demand for sex slaves and consumers through an attack on the industry's immense profitability.' Trafficking even occurs within the

A review on the play Buried Child By Sam Shepard Term Paper

A review on the play Buried Child By Sam Shepard - Term Paper Example The play explicitly reveals how different family values and the concept of an American family were a few decades back from how they are perceived today by the American nation in general. The concept of the American Dream is also kept highly obvious throughout the play as different portions from the play can be easily connected by the readers or viewers to construct the message conveyed by the author, which identifies how the youth remains incapable of carrying out the American Dream either due to physical or emotional reasons. Disappointment and disillusionment displayed by all the main characters in the play due to the basic requirements of the American Dream not getting fulfilled also forms a major part of this celebrated play. It is easy to judge from the play that Shepard has tried to convey the apparently boring information about myriad actual frustrations and problems faced by the American nation a few decades back while taking care to present that grave and sensitive informati on in a highly engaging and entertaining way. The author of the play Buried Child, Sam Shepard happens to be one of the mainstream American playwrights, actors, and film directors. Being closely associated with the entertainment media and having maintained his first-class status almost through out his active years makes Shepard a highly distinguished and wildly talented artist which is the reason why he also got awarded for writing the play under discussion in this critical review. In addition to advancing his myriad talented ideas in the field of drama and production, he also served as a learned teacher for quite many years busily teaching the naà ¯ve students crucially important tactics of acting and writing which explains why many of his literary works bagged worldwide critical acclaim. He is recognized as a truly shrewd and keen playwright who is

Management Control, Employment Equity and Skills Development

Management Control, Employment Equity and Skills Development Gabriella Greyling Management Control, Employment Equity, Skills Development Table of Contents (Jump to) Introduction Background Understanding the Scorecard Compliance of the Advertising Industry in Cape Town Conclusion Bibliography Introduction In the case study, Duffett, van der Heever Bell argue that transformation within the advertising industry is vital due to the influence this sector has over social norms and trends (Duffett, van der Heever Bell, 2009). They further argue that the advertising industry in Cape Town has implemented BEE and is making progress in complying with the targets set out in the Codes, although admit that there are some challenges that may impact on success of the Codes to achieve transformation goals. Compliance with three of the seven elements of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Codes of Good Practice of 2007 (â€Å"Codes†) (namely Management Control, Employment Equity and Skills Development) of the advertising industry in Cape Town, has been critically analysed using the 2009 study by Duffet, van der Heever and Bell. The study looks at factors that hinder or promote transformation in this industry, in relation to the B-BBEE Codes and applicable transformation charters. The advertising industry falls within the scope of the Marketing, Advertising and Communication (â€Å"MAC†) Transformation Charter, gazetted in terms of Section 12 of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (â€Å"B-BBEE†) Act (Act No. 53 of 2003). Under Section 12, a transformation charter is not binding on the industry, unlike the Codes, which were gazetted in terms of Section 9(1) of the B-BBEE Act (B-BBEE Codes, 2007, p15). This is mentioned as one of the factors impeding success of transformation in the advertising industry, as it has created some confusion for scorecard preparation. Furthermore, at the time of conducting the study, SANAS had delayed the process of accrediting Verification Agencies to July 2008. This meant that many companies were performing self-assessments to determine their compliance in terms of the B-BBEE Codes in order to save money on costly verifications. Consequently, the results from the study may not be entirely reliable, but they ne vertheless form a useful basis to understand B-BBEE compliance in the advertising industry in Cape Town. Background The B-BBEE Act of 2003 was introduced as a model for growth for the South African economy. Encapsulated in this model is the notion that â€Å"no economy can grow while the majority of its population are excluded†. (Okharedia, 2014) The Codes, which were subsequently gazetted in 2007, provided a tool for measuring empowerment (and by implication, transformation) within a company, known as the ‘Scorecard’. Seven elements to this scorecard cover various forms of empowerment, known as direct empowerment (Equity Ownership and Management Control), human resource development (Employment Equity and Skills Development) and indirect empowerment (Preferential Procurement, Enterprise Development and Socio-Economic Development). Specific targets are set for all entities, and these targets are weighted out of 100. Once the scores for each element are added up, they will result in a total number of points out of 100, which indicates the B-BBEE Status (Level 1 to 8) and Procurement Recognition Level (135% 0%). If a sector-specific code is issued in terms of Section 9(1) of the B-BBEE Act, it may have different targets and weightings to that of the Codes of Good Practice, which are applicable to that industry/sect or only). (B-BBEE Codes of Good Practice, 2007, p15). Due to the focus on the Management Control, Employment Equity and Skills Development elements, the table that follows presents only these three (3) elements, rather than all seven (7). Understanding the Scorecard Table 1: the Management Control, Employment Equity and Skills Development scorecards B-BBEE Element Total Weighting Measurement Criteria (Indicator) Indicator Weighting Target (0-5) Target (6-10) Management Control 10 Exercisable Voting Rights of black Board members using the Adjusted Recognition for Gender 3 50.0% 50.0% Black Executive Directors using the Adjusted Recognition for Gender 2 50.0% 50.0% Black Senior Top Management using the Adjusted Recognition for Gender 3 40.0% 40.0% Black Other Top Management using the Adjusted Recognition for Gender 2 40.0% 40.0% Bonus points: Black Independent Non-Executive Board Members 1 40.0% 40.0% Employment Equity 15 Black disabled employees as a percentage of all employees using the Adjusted Recognition for Gender 2 3.0% 3.0% Black employees in Senior Management as a percentage of all such employees using the Adjusted Recognition for Gender 5 43.0% 60.0% Black employees in Middle Management as a percentage of all such employees using the Adjusted Recognition for Gender 4 63.0% 75.0% Black employees in Junior Management as a percentage of all such employees using the Adjusted Recognition for Gender 4 68.0% 80.0% Bonus points for meeting or exceeding the EAP targets in each category. 3 Exceed EAP targets Exceed EAP targets Skills Development 15 Skills Development expenditure on black employees as a percentage of Leviable Amount using the Adjusted recognition for Gender. 6 3.0% 3.0% Skills Development expenditure on black employees with disabilities as a percentage of Leviable Amount using the Adjusted Recognition for Gender. 3 0.3% 0.3% Number of black employees participating in In-service Training Programs as a percentage of total employees using the Adjusted Recognition for Gender 6 5.0% 5.0% As one can see from Table 1, each element is further split into sub-elements or indicators. Each indicator has a point weighting, and a target. We will be focusing on the target for years 0 to 5 (since the Codes came into effect in 2007, and the applicable case study was published in 2009, which is within the first 5 years of the Codes). The Management Control score card measures board participation of black people in general, and black females specifically. Additionally, participation by black people at Senior Top Management level and â€Å"Other Top Management† level is encouraged in this element of the Codes. Emphasis is also placed on participation of black Executive Directors. Participation of black women at board and top management level is further encouraged through the Adjusted Recognition for Gender (â€Å"ARG†) provisions of the Codes. This provision places a greater weighting on black women, by dividing the percentage of black people by 2, and then adding the percentage of black females. The enhancement does have a limitation, in that when adding back the black female percentage, this figure cannot exceed 50% of the target for that indicator (in other words, if the target is 40%, then one can add back a maximum of 20% to the total black percentage representation which had been divided by 2. Similarly, the Employment Equity and Skills Development score cards also utilise the ARG in order to encourage equality between men and women (black females should make up half the target of black people, which is also statistically feasible, as females constitute half of the population in South Africa (Commission for Employment Equity, 2013). The Employment Equity scorecard measures four areas of employment; Senior Management, Middle Management and Junior Management, as well as disabled employees, while Skills Development measures expenditure on skills training for black employees in general and black employees with disabilities specifically. It also measures the number of employees engaged in Learnerships (or Category B, C or D Learning Programs, as per the Learning Program matrix contained in Annexe 400A of Code 400) as a percentage of the company’s total staff compliment. Comparison of the Codes and MAC Transformation Charter Upon closer inspection of the targets contained in the Management Control, Employment Equity and Skills Development Scorecards of the MAC Transformation Charter and the Codes of Good Practice, the weightings are different, and the targets are phased in from 2006 to 2014 such that the 2014 targets match that of the Codes (or are higher than targets contained in the Codes); Points available under Board participation for the MAC Charter are 5, and targets will be phased in from 25% in 2006, to 50% in 2014 (whereas the Codes offer 3 points for 50% black board participation) The same target applies to Executive directors, Senior Top Management and Other Top Management under the MAC Charter set the target to 25% at first, increasing to 30% in 2009 and finally 50% in 2014 (which is higher than the Codes for Senior Top and Other Top Management targets of 40%, un-staggered) while the available points under the MAC charter are higher in all three categories (4 and 3 points available, instead of 3 and 2 respectively). The target for Independent Non-executives is lower under MAC at 30% (and is phased in from 10% in 2006), as opposed to 40%. Under Employment Equity, the MAC Charter imposes one target for Senior, Middle and Junior Management of 25% in 2006 gradually increasing to 60% in 2014, unlike the Codes, which indicate 2 phases of targets, for each level of management separately. The Skills Development element is more similar between the Codes and the MAC Charter, unlike the previous 2 elements, however, the total skills expenditure on black employees as a percentage of the Leviable Amount target phased in from 1% in 2006 to the full 3% (as per the Codes) by 2014. These different targets make MAC Charter slightly easier to comply with, in terms of absolute targets. Compliance of the Advertising Industry in Cape Town According to Duffet, van der Heever and Bell, the advertising industry in Cape Town reported an increase in black employees from 35.2% in 2004 to 40.2% in 2006. They further reported that black female employees increased from 21% in 2004 to 23.9% in 2006. With regard to management positions, there was a reported increase in black female managers, from 13.8% in 2004 to 17.7% in 2006. One of the challenges noted from the study, was that there was a shortage of skilled black Previously Disadvantaged People (â€Å"PDI†) leading up to 2008, particularly in the advertising industry. Further, the 2007 B-BBEE baseline study referred to in the study also reported a high turnover of black staff, further confirming the desire for black employees in the advertising industry to â€Å"job-hop†. This becomes costly, as companies try to offer comparative salaries to retain talent, not only in their company, but in Cape Town, since salaries are known to be higher in Johannesburg than in the Cape. Training programmes would need to be used to improve job satisfaction with the view that they may result in improved staff retention rates. It was reported that the advertising industry has come up with some innovative training and mentorship programs in order to address both skills and staff (Employment Equity/Management Control) requirements. A further challenge in relation to B-BBEE spoke to attitudes that companies had toward compliance. In one instance, it was noted that some larger companies were more focused on compliance with BEE regulations, than acting in the true spirit of BEE, and that in some instances dishonesty and deceptive practices were used to achieve better scores, as this can result in increased business. Despite concerns by white males who took part in the study, that they were effectively working themselves out of jobs by embracing B-BBEE, many viewed B-BBEE as an opportunity to engage with their target market. Rather than stifling out diversity, encouraging it could create further business opportunities, especially in terms of growing the target market (through job creation, but also through understanding the new emerging target market of empowered black South Africans, and being able to create purchasing desires that would stimulate the economy during a difficult global financial period). The risk faced by the advertising industry was losing their white employees if these employees felt prejudiced by the opportunities being afforded to black South Africans only. The only possible way for this to succeed would be through growth of the industry, in order to generate more revenues to pay all employees equitable and comparable salaries, regardless of race. These challenges can heavily impact the compliance of companies for the Management Control, Employment Equity and Skills Development elements; when B-BBEE is seen as a cost, the true potential envisioned in the objectives of B-BBEE is easily lost. It was however reported that over 80% of advertising agencies had utilised the services of B-BBEE verification agencies, despite the industry being in its infancy, and that a majority of these agencies had positive attitudes towards B-BBEE. This resulted in the advertising industry being ahead of the national B-BBEE status, in terms of their level of compliance achieved. However, compliance within the MAC Charter targets, which as previously discussed is not binding, and has lower, phased-in targets than the Codes, may have led to these higher status levels. Conclusion Due to the uncertainties existing in the B-BBEE verification and compliance sphere at the time of the study, it is difficult to assess whether or not meaningful transformation had taken place. Despite this, there are indications of compliance by the advertising industry in Cape Town. While the industry was mostly self-regulated, around 80% of agencies confirmed they had engaged with Verification Agencies to confirm their B-BBEE credentials. Standardising and formalising the verification process may result in greater compliance, along with the imposition of penalties for misrepresenting information in order to achieve a favourable score. As stated by the authors of the study, â€Å"The ratio of success to failure in BEE is determined on a daily basis† (Duffett, van der Heever Bell, 2009; 109). Regular monitoring is required to continuously assess compliance with the Codes, and to evaluate transformation achievements as a result of B-BBEE. Even with the wrong intentions, B-BBEE can promote changes and improvements in the lives of previously disadvantaged individuals. However, true success for B-BBEE would be to bring about meaningful improvements in the lives of all South Africans, rather than a select few. Bibliography R.G. Duffett, I.C. Van der Heever D. Bell. 2009. ‘Black economic empowerment progress in the advertising industry in Cape Town: Challenges and benefits’, Southern African Business Review, 13(3): 86-118. South Africa, Department of Trade and Industry. 2003. Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act, No. 53 of 2003, No. 25899, Government Gazette Volume 463. Pretoria: Government Printers. South Africa, Department of Trade and Industry. 2007.Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Codes of Good Practice,No.29617, Government Gazette Volume500,Section 9(1) of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Codes of Good Practice Act 53 of 2003.Pretoria: Government Printers. South Africa, Department of Trade and Industry. 2008. Marketing, Advertising and Communication Sector Transformation Charter, No. 31371, Government Gazette Volume 518, Section 12 of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act, No. 53 of 2003. Pretoria: Government Printers. Okharedia, A.A.. 2014. ‘B-BBEE Legislative and Strategic Framework’ [PowerPoint Presentation] 10 March. UNISA Graduate School of Business Leadership. Midrand, Gauteng. South Africa, Department of Labour. 2013. Commission for Employment Equity; Annual Report 2012-2013, Pretoria: Government Printers. Available at http://www.labour.gov.za/DOL/documents/annual-reports/Commission%20for%20Employment%20Equity%20Report/2012-2013/annual-report-comission-for-employment-equity-report-2012-2013> [Accessed 25 March 2014]

College Pressure

â€Å"What's wrong with the students of today? Back when I was a student we had a better attitude! † Criticisms like this are often heard from parents and teachers, in the newspapers and other media? And it's been that way ever since education began. No matter what society or era you consider, there are always plenty of wise authorities pointing out that â€Å"The students of today† are somehow failing to grasp the true meaning of university education. Or maybe it's the other way around: Are universities failing to grasp the true meaning of students? This text examines different aspects of this question and discusses the many pressures that modern students face. College  Pressures William Zinsser I am master of Branford College at Yale. I live on the campus and know the students well. (We have 485 of them. ) I listen to their hopes and fears — and also to their stereo music and their piercing cries in the dead of night (â€Å"Does anybody care? â€Å"). They come to me to ask how to get through the rest of their lives. Mainly I try to remind them that the road ahead is a long one and that it will have more unexpected turns than they think. There will be plenty of time to change jobs, change careers, change whole attitudes and approaches. They don't want to hear such news. They want a map — right now — that they can follow directly to career security, financial security, social security and, presumably, a prepaid grave. What I wish for all students is some release from the grim grip of the future. I wish them a chance to enjoy each segment of their education as an experience in itself and not as a tiresome requirement in preparation for the next step. I wish them the right to experiment, to trip and fall, to learn that defeat is as educational as victory and is not the end of the world. My wish, of course, is naive. One of the few rights that America does not proclaim is the right to fail. Achievement is the national god, worshipped in our media — the million-dollar athlete, the wealthy executive — and glorified in our praise of possessions. In the presence of such a potent state religion, the young are growing up old. I see four kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure. It's easy to look around for bad guys — to blame the colleges for charging too much money, the professors for assigning too much work, the parents for pushing their children too far, the students for driving themselves too hard. But there are no bad guys, only victims. Today it is not unusual for a student, even one who works part time at college and full time during the summer, to have accumulated $5,000 in loans after four years — loans that the student must start to repay within one year after graduation (and incidentally, not all these loans are low-interest, as many non-students believe). Encouraged at the commencement ceremony to go forth into the world, students are already behind as they go forth. How can they not feel under pressure throughout college to prepare for this day of reckoning? Women at Yale are under even more pressure than men to justify their expensive education to themselves, their parents, and society. For although they leave college superbly equipped to bring fresh leadership to traditionally male jobs, society hasn't yet caught up with this fact. Along with economic pressure goes parental pressure. Inevitably, the two are deeply intertwined. I see students taking premedical courses with joyless determination. They go off to their labs as if they were going to the dentist. It saddens me because I know them in other corners of their life as cheerful people. â€Å"Do you want to go to medical school? † I ask them. â€Å"I guess so,† they say, without conviction, or, â€Å"Not really. †    â€Å"Then why are you going? † â€Å"My parents want me to be a doctor. They're paying all this money and †¦ †   Ã‚   Peer pressure and self-induced pressure are also intertwined, and they begin from the very start of freshman year. I had a freshman student I'll call Linda,† one instructor told me, â€Å"who came in and said she was under terrible pressure because her roommate, Barbara, was much brighter and studied all the time. I couldn't tell her that Barbara had come in two hours earlier to say the same thing about Linda. † The story is almost funny — except that it's not . It's a symptom of all the pressures put together. When every student thinks every other student is working harder and doing better, the only solution is to study harder still. I see students going off to the library every night after dinner and coming back when it closes at midnight. I wish they could sometimes forget about their peers and go to a movie. I hear the rattling of typewriters in the hours before dawn. I see the tension in their eyes when exams are approaching and papers are due: â€Å"Will I get everything done? †   Ã‚  Ã‚   Probably they won't. They will get sick. They will sleep. They will oversleep. They will bug out. I've painted too grim a portrait of today's students, making them seem too solemn. That's only half of their story; the other half is that these students are nice people, and easy to like. They're quick to laugh and to offer friendship. They're more considerate of one another than any student generation I've ever known. If I've described them primarily as driven creatures who largely ignore the joyful side of life, it's because that's where the problem is — not only at Yale but throughout American education. It's why I think we should all be worried about the values that are nurturing a generation so fearful of risk and so goal-obsessed at such an early age. I tell students that there is no one â€Å"right† way to get ahead — that each of them is a different person, starting from a different point and bound for a different destination. I tell them that change is healthy and that people don't have to fit into pre-arranged slots. One of my ways of telling them is to invite men and women who have achieved success outside the academic world to come and talk informally with my students during the year. I invite heads of companies, editors of magazines, politicians, Broadway producers, artists, writers, economists, photographers, scientists, historians — a mixed bag of achievers. I ask them to say a few words about how they got started. The students always assume that they started in their present profession and knew all along that it was what they wanted to do. But in fact, most of them got where they are by a circuitous route, after many side trips. The students are startled. They can hardly conceive of a career that was not preplanned. They can hardly imagine allowing the hand of God or chance to lead them down some unforeseen trail. College Pressures by William Zinsser( , ) , , , Dear Carlos: I desperately need a dean's excuse for my chem midterm which will begin in about 1 hour. All I can say is that I totally blew it this week. I've fallen incredibly, inconceivably behind. Carlos: Help! I'm anxious to hear from you. I'll be in my room and won't leave it until I hear from you. Tomorrow is the last day for †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. Carlos: I left town because I started bugging out again. I stayed up all night to finish a take-home make-up exam and am typing it to hand in on the 10th. It was due on the 5th. P. S. I'm going to the dentist. Pain is pretty bad. Carlos: Probably by Friday I'll be able to get back to my studies. Right now I'm going to take a long walk. This whole thing has taken a lot out of me. Carlos: I'm really up the proverbial creek. The problem is I really bombed the history final. Since I need that course for my major I †¦. Carlos: Here follows a tale of woe. I went home this weekend, had to help my Mom, and caught a fever so didn't have much time to study. My professor †¦.. Carlos: Aargh!! Trouble. Nothing original but everything's piling up at once. To be brief, my job interview †¦.. Hey Carlos, good news! I've got mononucleosis. Who are these wretched supplicants, scribbling notes so laden with anxiety, seeking such miracles of postponement and balm? They are men and women who belong to Branford College, one of the twelve residential colleges at Yale University, and the messages are just a few of the hundreds that they left for their dean, Carlos Hortas — often slipped under his door at 4 a. m. — last year. But students like the ones who wrote those notes can also be found on campuses from coast to coast — especially in New England, and at many other private colleges across the country that have high academic standards and highly motivated students. Nobody could doubt that the notes are real. In their urgency and their gallows humor they are authentic voices of a generation that is panicky to succeed. My own connection with the message writers is that I am master of Branford College. I live in its Gothic quadrangle and know the students well. (We have 485 of them. ) I am privy to their hopes and fears — and also to their stereo music and their piercing cries in the dead of night (â€Å"Does anybody ca-a-are? â€Å"). If they went to Carlos to ask how to get through tomorrow, they come to me to ask how to get through the rest of their lives. Mainly I try to remind them that the road ahead is a long one and that it will have more unexpected turns than they think. There will be plenty of time to change jobs, change careers, change whole attitudes and approaches. They don't want to hear such liberating news. They want a map — right now — that they can follow unswervingly to career security, financial security, social security and, presumably, a prepaid grave. What I wish for all students is some release from the clammy grip of the future. I wish them a chance to savor each segment of their education as an experience in itself and not as a grim preparation for the next step. I wish them the right to experiment, to trip and fall, to learn that defeat is as instructive as victory and is not the end of the world. My wish, of course, is naive. One of the few rights that America does not proclaim is the right to fail. Achievement is the national god, venerated in our media — the million dollar athlete, the wealthy executive — and the glorified in our praise of possessions. In the presence of such a potent state religion, the young are growing up old. I see four kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure. It is easy to look around for villians — to blame the colleges for charging too much money, the professors for assigning too much work, the parents for pushing their children too far, the students for driving themselves too hard. But there are are no villians, only victims. â€Å"In the late 1960's,† one dean told me, â€Å"the typical question that I got from students was, ‘Why is there so much suffering in the world? ‘ or ‘How can I make a contribution? ‘ Today it's, ‘Do you think it would look better for getting into law school if I did a double major in history and political science, or just majored in one of them? Many other deans confirmed this pattern. One said, â€Å"They're trying to find an edge — the intangible something that will look better on paper if two students are about equal. † Note the emphasis on looking better. The transcript has become a sacred document, the passport to security. How one appears on pape r is more important than how one appears in person. A is for Admirable and B is for Borderline, even though, in Yale's official system of grading, A means â€Å"excellent† and B means â€Å"very good. † Today, looking very good is no longer enough, especially for students who hope to go on to law school or medical school. They know that entrance into the better schools will be an entrance into the better law firms and better medical practices where they will make a lot of money. They also know that the odds are harsh, Yale Law School, for instance, matriculates 170 students from an applicant pool of 3,700; Harvard enrolls 550 from a pool of 7,000. It's all very well for those of us who write letters of recommendation for our students to stress the qualities of humanity that will make them good lawyers or doctors. And it's nice to think that admission officers are really reading our letters and looking for the extra dimension of commitment or concern. Still, it would be hard for a student not to visualize these officers shuffling so many transcripts studded with A's that they regard a B as positively shameful. The pressure is almost as heavy on students who just want to graduate and get a job. Long gone are the days of the â€Å"gentlemen's C,† when students journeyed through college with a certain relaxation, sampling a wide variety of courses — music, art, philosophy, classics, anthropology, poetry, religion — that would send them out as liberally educated men and women. If I were an employer I would employ graduates who have this range and curiousity rather than those who narrowly purused safe subjects and high grades. I know countless students whose inquiring minds exhilarate me. I like to hear the play of their ideas. I don't know if they are getting A's or C's, and I don't care. I also like them as people. The country needs them, and they will find satisfying jobs. I tell them to relax. They can't. Nor can I blame them. They live in a brutal economy. Tuition, room, and board at most private colleges now comes to at least $7,000, not counting books and fees. This might seem to suggest that the colleges are getting rich. But they are equally battered by inflation. Tuition covers only 60% of what it costs to educate a student, and ordinarily the remainder comes from what colleges receive in endowments, grants, and gifts. Now the remainder keeps being swallowed by the cruel costs higher every year, of just opening the doors. Heating oil is up. Insurance is up. Postage is up. Health premium costs are up. Everything is up. Deficits are up. We are witnessing in America the creation of a brotherhood of paupers — colleges, parents and students, joined by the common bond of debt. Today it is not unusual for a student, even if he works part-time at college and full-time during the summer, to accrue $5,000 in loans after four years — loans that he must start to repay within one year after graduation. Exhorted at commencement to go forth into the world, he is already behind as he goes forth. How could he not feel under pressure throughout college to prepare for this day of reckoning? I have used â€Å"he,† incidentally, only for brevity. Women at Yale are under no less pressure to justify their expensive education to themsleves, their parents, and society. In fact, they are probably under more pressure. For although they leave college superbly equipped to bring fresh leadership to traditionally male jobs, society hasn't yet caught up with that fact. Along with economic pressure goes parental pressure. Inevitably, the two are deeply intertwined. I see many students taking pre-medical courses with joyless tenacity. They go off to their labs as if they were going to the dentist. It saddens me because I know them in other corners of their life as cheerful people. â€Å"Do you want to go to medical school? I ask them. â€Å"I guess so,† they say, without conviction, or â€Å"Not really. † â€Å"Then why are you going? † â€Å"Well, my parents want me to be a doctor. They're paying all this money and †¦ † Poor students, poor parents. They are caught in one of the oldest webs of love and duty and guilt. The parents mean well; they are trying to steer their sons and daughters toward a secure future. But the so ns and daughters want to major in history or classics or philosophy — subjects with no â€Å"practical† value. Where's the payoff on the humanities? It's not easy to persuade such loving parents that the humanities do, indeed, pay off. The intellectual faculties developed by studying subjects like history and classics — an ability to synthesize and relate, to weigh cause and effect, to see events in perspective — are just the faculties that make creative leaders in business or almost any general field. Still, many thaters would rather put their money on courses that point toward a specific profession — courses that are pre-law, pre-medical, pre-business, or as I sometimes put it, â€Å"pre-rich. † But the pressure on students is severe. They are truly torn. One part of them feels obligated to fulfill their parents' expectations; after all, their parents are older and presumably wiser. Another part tells them that the expectations that are right for their parents are not right for them. I know a student who wants to be an artist. She is very obviously an artist and will be a good one — she has already had several modest local exhibits. Meanwhile she is growing as a well-rounded person and taking humanistic subjects that will enrich the inner resources out of which her art will grow. But her father is strongly opposed. He thinks that an artist is a â€Å"dumb† thing to be. The student vacillates and tries to please everybody. She keeps up with her art somewhat furtively and takes some of the â€Å"dumb† courses her father wants her to take — at least they are dumb courses for her. She is a free spirit on a campus of tense students — no small achievement in itself — she deserves to follow her muse. Peer pressure and self-induced pressure are also intertwined, and they begin almost at the beginning of freshman year. I had a freshman student I'll call Linda, † one dean told me, â€Å"who came in and said she was under terrible pressure because her roommate, Barbara, was much brighter and studied all the time. I couldn't tell her that Barabra had come in two hours earlier to say the same thing about Linda. † The story is almost funny — except that it's not. It's symptomatic of all the pressures put together. When every student thinks every other student is working harder and doing better, the only solution is to study harder still. I see students going off to the library every night after dinner and coming back when it closes at midnight. I wish they would sometimes forget about their peers and go to a movie. I hear the clack of typewriters in the hours before dawn. I see the tension in their eyes when exams are approaching and papers are due : â€Å"Will I get everything done? † Probably they won't. They will get sick. They will get â€Å"blocked†. They will sleep. They will oversleep. They will bug out. Hey Carlos, Help! Part of the problem is that they do more than they are expected to do. A professor will assign five-page papers. Several students will start writing ten-page papers, and a few will raise the ante to fifteen. Pity the poor student who is still just doing the assignment. â€Å"Once you have twenty or thirty percent of the student population deliberately overexerting,† one dean points out, â€Å"it's just bad for everybody. When a teacher gets more and more effort from his class, the student who is doing normal work can be perceived as not doing well. The tactic works, psychologically. † Why can't the professor just cut back and not accept longer papers? He can and he probably will. But by then the term will be half over and the damage done. Grade fever is highly contagious and not easily reversed. Besides, the professor's main concern is with his course. He knows his students only in relation to the course and doesn't know that they are also overexerting in their other courses. Nor is it really his business. He didn't sign up for dealing with the student as a whole person and with all the emotional baggage the student brought from home. That's what deans, masters, chaplains, and psychiatrists are for. To some extent this is nothing new: a certain number of professors have always been self-contained islands of scholarship and shyness, more comfortable with books than with people. But the new pauperism has widened the gap still further, for professors who actually like to spend time with students don't have as much time to spend. They also are overexerting. If they are young, they are busy trying to publish in order not to perish, hanging by their fingernails onto a shrinking profession. If they are old and tenured, they are buried under the duties of administering departments — as departmental chairmen or members of committees — that have been thinned out by the budgetary axe. Ultimately it will be the student's own business to break the circles in which they are trapped. They are too young to be prisoners of their parents' dreams and their classmates' fears. They must be jolted into believing in themselves as unique men and women who have the power to shape their own future. â€Å"Violence is being done to the undergraduate experience,† says Carlos Horta. â€Å"College should be open-ended; at the end it should open many, many roads. Instead, students are choosing their goal in advance, and their choices narrow as they go along, it's almost as if they think that the country has been codified in the type of jobs that exist — that they've got to fit into certain slots. Therefore, fit into the best-paying slot. † â€Å"They ought to take chances. Not taking chances will lead to a life of colorless mediocrity. They'll be comfortable. But something in the spirit will be missing. † I have painted too drab a portrait of today's students, making them seem a solemn lot. That is only half of their story: if they were so dreary I wouldn't so thoroughly enjoy their company. The other half is that they are easy to like. They are quick to laugh and to offer friendship. They are not introverts. They are unusually kind and are more considerate of one another than any student generation I have known. Nor are they so obsessed with their studies that they avoid sports and extra-curricular activities. On the contrary, they juggle their crowded hours to play on a variety of teams, peform with musical and dramatic groups, and write for campus publications. But this in turn is one more cause of anxiety. There are too many choices. Academically, they have 1,300 courses to select from; outside class they have to decide how much spare time they can spare and how to spend it. This means that they engage in fewer extracurricular pursuits than their predecessors did. If they want to row on the crew and play in the symphony they will eliminate one; in the '60's they would have done both. They also tend to choose activities that are self-limiting. Drama, for instance, is flourishing in all twelve of Yale's residential colleges as it never has before. Students hurl themselves into these productions — as actors, directors, carpenters, and technicians — with a dedication to create the best possible play, knowing that the day will come when the run will end and they can get back to their studies. They also can't afford to be the willing slave for organizations like the Yale Daily News. Last spring at the one hundredth anniversary banquet of that paper whose past chairmen include such once and future kings as Potter Stewart, Kingman Brewster, and William F. Buckley, Jr. — much was made of the fact that the editorial staff used to be small and totally committed and that â€Å"newsies† routinely worked fifty hours a week. In effect they belonged to a club; Newsies is how they defined themselves at Yale. Today's student will write one or two articles a week, when he can, and he defines himself as a student. I've never heard the word Newsie except at the banquet. If I have described the modern undergraduate primarily as a driven creature who is largely ignoring the blithe spirit inside who keeps trying to come out and play, it's because that's where the crunch is, not only at Yale but throughout American education. It's why I think we should all be worried about the values that are nurturing a generation so fearful of risk and so goal-obsessed at such an early age. I tell students that there is no one â€Å"right† way to get ahead — that each of them is a different person, starting from a different point and bound for a different destination. I tell them that change is a tonic and that all the slots are not codified nor the frontiers closed. One of my ways of telling them is to invite men and women who have achieved success outside the academic world to come and talk informally with my students during the year. They are heads of companies or ad agencies, editors of magazines, politicians, public officials, television magnates, labor leaders, business executives, Broadway producers, artists, writers, economists, photographers, scientists, historians — a mixed bag of achievers. I ask them to say a few words about how they got started. The students assume that they started in their present profession and knew all along that it was what they wanted to do. Luckily for me, most of them got into their field by a circuitious route, to their surprise, after many detours. The students are startled. They can hardly conceive of a career that was not pre-planned. They can hardly imagine allowing the hand of God or chance to nudge them down some unforeseen trail.

Economic Implications on Social Media Essay

The developments in the information technology sector have led to facilitation in information sharing across the globe in what has been referred to as social media. The internet has brought many changes in the way individuals across the world interact. Through the use of social media, individuals are able to exchange photographs, videos, post their thoughts on blogs and take part in discussions that takes lace online. Social media allows the people, organizations, companies and governments to be able to reach large numbers of people with a lot of ease. This paper shall give an overview of how the social media has impacted on the economic domain of development in the society by analyzing both the positive and the negative impacts. Social Media: Social media refers to the various internet based and mobile services which allows the user to take part in online exchanges, contributing user-created content and being able to join the online community. It also refers to the tools and technologies that enable an online interaction, networking, sharing and collaboration. There are various services internet services that are usually associated with social media which includes blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, social network sites, status updates services, virtual word content and media sharing site (Dewing, 2010). Blogs is a short form of ‘web log’ which can be described as an online journal in which pages are put on view in an overturned chronological order. The blogs can be hosted for free on various websites including WordPress and Blogger among others. Wikis on the other hand refers to collective websites in which anyone participating can modify the pages or create their new pages using a Web browser. A good example of a wiki is the Wikipedia which is a free online encyclopedia that utilizes the wiki technology. Social bookmarking sites are those sites which allow the users to share and organize links to websites for instance the Delicious, Digg, and Reddit. Social network sites are the web-based services which enables the individuals to build a public or semi-public profile in a delimited system. The individuals are also able to articulate a list of other users whom they share connection thus being able to navigate through and view their list of connections and those of others in the system. Such sites include Facebook, MySpace, and Windows Live Spaces amongst others (Dewing, 2010). Status-update services are also referred to as micro-blogging services are more like social network sites but they allow individuals to share short updates and also be able to view updates from others. A good example is the twitter services. Virtual world content on the other hand offers a game-like virtual environment for the users to interact. A good example of this would be the imaginary world that is created in Second Life whereby users can create avatars to interact with each other. Avatars are the virtual representations of the users. Media–sharing sites are those which enable the users to post videos or photographs for instance the You Tube and Flickr. It must be noted that some of these categories do overlap for instance twitter can be regarded as both a social network site as well as a stats update service (Dewing, 2010). Social media is capable of affecting the manner in which individuals interact online. Social media is known to open up new ways for cooperation and dialogue in today’s world. Most of the content posted in social media may remain there permanently at least by default. The content may also be accessible, replicable, and searchable. Social media can therefore be used anywhere, and at any moment provided that there is internet connectivity in the area. Such factors are responsible for shaping of the dynamics of the social media. The fact that the players in the social media are usually invisible raises various questions regarding the framework, correctness and unambiguousness regarding the communication. The identity and motives of those who post contents in the social media are not always clear (Dewing, 2010). Evolution of Social Media: The internet became popular in the last two decades and web sites which allowed individuals to create and upload content started appearing with the first network site said to have appeared in 1997 for the first time. The first social network site to be launched was called ‘SixDegrees. com’ and it was followed soon by many others at the turn of the millennium. In 2002, there was an upsurge in the number of social network sites with some surging to popularity only to fade in a little while such as the Friendstar. However, others were able to develop niche communities for instance MySpace appealed to adolescent music enthusiasts (Dewing, 2010). Towards the end of the first decade of the second millennium, social media was widely accepted, for instance; by the year 2009, Facebook made the announcement that its users were well over 350 million worldwide (Dewing, 2010). There are a number of factors that have led to a surge in the social media participation which include technological factors, social factors and economic factors. Technological factors include things such as readily available broadband, improvement in software tools, and the development of more powerful computer and mobile services. Social factors on the other hand include the rapid uptake of social media by the young generation while the economic factors include the growth in commercial interests in the social media sites and affordability of computers and related software (Dewing, 2010). Impacts of Social Media: Since the widespread usage of social media is a recent phenomenon, social and economic implications can only be barely understood. Some quarters hold the belief that social media is causing isolation amongst the people whereas others believe that social media has broaden democratic participation. According to a research conducted by statistics Canada; We should expect neither a dysfunctional society of loners nor a blissful society of happy net-workers. Rather, we are facing a society that is differently cohesive from the one we have known. There do not appear to be any significant differences in the number of social ties or in the amount of social interaction between Internet users and non-users. Instead, the Internet is providing ways of fostering participation with community members and enhancing relationships, including through social media (Dewing, 2010, para 10). Social media has also had economic impacts in regard to the manner in which what is contained in the social media is created and consumed. This can be summed up to the growth in the information and communication sector of the economy. In most economies, growth in this sector of the economy has been tremendous even surpassing the overall economic growth. Many business firms and organizations have also incorporated social media in their marketing strategies (Dewing, 2010). Socio-economic Impacts: The socioeconomic theory appears to be spearheading the deflationary cycle more than the financial or the political economics. Previously, the Keynesian and libertarian theories were believed to be the key players in the deflationary cycle. According to the socio-economic theories, it is claimed that in order for us to get out of the deflationary cycle, there is need to view it as both a sociological and fiscal problem. The solution is therefore to be found in the ground-breaking technology which promises huge profits to be used in investment so as to commence the next boom cycle, and snap the society out of the predicament created by the economic downturn. Social media could play a role in mitigating the damages that arise from the deflationary cycle. It could also be instrumental in the construction of the next opportunities for technological innovations (Fischer, 2009). Understanding the objective economic potential is very crucial and dependant on the revolution of the social media. Social media is known to utilize technology in enhancing the people’s ability to interact with others. Social media is to be found in interaction, connection, trust and relations that are driven by technology. In regard to business, this implies establishment of trust and channels of communication which supports and enables collaboration and building of engaged teams through the removal of barriers and frustrations that were created by conventional structures. Social media particularly in regard to collaboration has the potential to unlock the hidden knowledge in organizations when required. It also lowers the cost of software via open source cooperation, easing the finding of appropriate information, and making organizations to be more responsive. These are however cultural changes that occurs gradually. Nevertheless, the promise for change is there even though it might take much longer time. However, the technological investment that is required to bring about these changes is quite cheaply available (Fischer, 2009). With social media, change is bound to happen. Social media has the prospects of creating more effective organizations via the collaboration, â€Å"providing a greater variety of information services at low cost through mashups and open source, and a lower cost to product and service messaging, when the product and service has great appeal†(Fischer, 2009, para 7). Similarly, social media has detrimental impacts on the established industries. The conventional advertising media has become decreasingly effective due to the increasing numbers of the individuals who are networked and therefore attentive to one another. It is imperative to observe that; Friend of a friend referrals, rating sites or consumer oriented websites will become the norm and rely on their objectivity to maintain trust with their followers, therefore are not as subject to trying to manipulate their audience based on the promise of big advertising revenue (Fischer, 2009, para 8). There is no doubt that manipulation is part of the social media practice though the ability for any individual to broadcast and gain audience to the large network in the social media indicates that it is not an easy task and it is destined to be the exception and not the norm in the long run (Fischer, 2009). The distribution of retail products may also come to the forefront due to the social media influence. Due to the fact that e-commerce has been enhanced in the recent past owing to a revolution in the social media, some social observations have been made in regard to marketing trends for instance, there has been a relation drawn between the trends on how particular products are moved in the market. Such observations may be observed as ‘individuals who bought product X also bought product Y’. Large business organizations may also offer lower prices and utilize the social media to achieve the personal touch, a domain previously associated with small business organizations. This has been geared towards the ‘commodization’ of products that are produced on a large scale and the futuristic markets with the chances of realizing massive profits. The markets of the future are said to be niche markets that would require subject matter expertise and customization (Fischer, 2009). The gains of the social media in economic venture may be offset by the unsettling role associated with it in the conventional industries. In the past, any technological changes would result in obvious and simple routes to massive increases in the production and demand. However, with the social media, increase in productivity and demand over a short time is not palpable due to the fact that it requires cultural changes together with the technological transformations. Eventually, as the cultural changes are realized over time, massive increases in the production may be realized; however, in the short term social media can not be used to provide an obvious path for investment capable of leading to gains in effectiveness and productivity (Fischer, 2009). There is this argument that tightly knit society has the capability to survive economic stress better compared to a loosely knit society. Social media ensures that the world is woven in complex interactions and also offers individuals with something to do when they are not involved in an economic activity. This is motivated by what can be referred to as ‘reputation economics’ which is designed to motivate individuals to engage in activities such as creating open source software, report on events, and many more information services that would have required individuals to pay for before the advent of the internet. This allows for rich content and growth of valuable products to be carried out devoid of investment and yet with returns for instance a â€Å"business entity that hosts their websites on Linux servers or uses open office to create and manage documents† (Fischer, 2009, para 9). To add on the long term effectiveness of the social media which include the creation of complex systems like an operating system at relatively low cost; it could also enable the development of new innovations presenting a clear path that shall increase production and demand. The deflationary cycle that is predicted by the socio-economic theories could only be shortened if only we are able to find out the kind of innovation required and be able to bring it more quickly (Fischer, 2009). Social media is said to provide revenue to both the users and platforms. It has to be noted that social media better known as social computing is a driver for competitiveness. The effects of social computing may be seen on the industry itself for instance, the development in the social media or the information and communication technology sector. It can also be observed in other industries that uses the social computing. There is evidence that â€Å"more targeted marketing and user research which are reliant on user profiles and content interest are opening new channels to markets† (Pascu, 2008, para 11). There are emergent employment possibilities vial social networks and new opportunities to utilize user innovations in developing the products or as an intermediate between organizations and consumers (Pascu, 2008). The impact of social media can not be wished away as insignificant. This is because, faced with the modern reality where social media provides a platform for the consumers, competitors and the market place to discuss products, services and employees. All this is carried out online â€Å"whether it’s a protest group on Facebook (â€Å"United Airlines Sucks! â€Å"), a persistent hashtag on Twitter (#attfail) or just a meme that travels from blogger to Blogger† (Taylor, 2009, para 5). At this juncture, it does not matter as to whether it is of importance to probe into the social networks. What is of importance is whether one is paying attention to the social media where the message has gone to. This means that the customer to the company products is the one to define the brand in the market. This is quite challenging as it means that those organizations with acceptable products are bound to be reap benefits even with minimum branding and marketing strategies whereas those companies that are considered bad by the customers are destined to suffer from a bad reputation even when they spent more money to advertise themselves and try to position themselves as market leaders (Taylor, 2009). It is therefore important for organizations to take time and monitor what is going on in the social media. There are various services at the disposal of whoever would like to monitor the social media which include the individual services such as ‘Search. twitter. com’ and more complicated ones such as ‘Filtrbox’ and ‘Radian 6’. For successful business undertaking, there is need for organizations to embrace the social media which provides an avenue to engage with the customers. Interaction on the social media with the customers is crucial and thus joining these sites for creating new bully pulpits for the organization’s marketing and sales messages without proper interaction with the customers is not commendable (Taylor, 2009). The organizations can not be isolated from the social media as they create a powerful impression with the capability of having a lasting impact that may prove to be hard to change. Accompany with a bad reputation might score poorly even with spirited advertisement due to evaluations that are obtained from the social media. It is therefore important to address the problems that are affecting the organizations one by one rather than spending huge sums of money in advertising the products (Chong, 2010). Conclusion: Social media has been a new discovery in the information and communication sector and that its impacts on the economic development are worthy noting. The economic impacts of social media are two fold and may bring positive results or negative results to a business organization. With social media, the consumers of the company products are able to talk about the products, services and competitors and definitely such discussions are to impact on the business entity either for better or for worse. Social media can therefore have far reaching repercussions on the business organizations in terms of profitability. Reference: Chong, S. , (2010). Nothing Can save Negative Buzz on Twitter. Retrieved on 26th July 2010 from; http://www. penn-olson. com/2010/07/02/nothing-can-save-negative-buzz-on-twitter/. Dewing, M. , (2010). Social Media: 1. An Introduction. Retrieved on 26th July 2010 from; http://www2. parl. gc. ca/Content/LOP/ResearchPublications/2010-03-e. htm. Fischer, K. , (2009). Exploring the economic impact of social media. Retrieved on 26th July 2010 from; http://www. web20blog. org/2009/03/24/exploring-the-economic-impact-of-social-media/. Pascu, C. , (2008). ERoSC-The Socio-economic Impact of Emerging Social Computing Applications. Retrieved on 26th July 2010 from; http://docs. google. com/viewer? a=v&q=cache:dHneLXVRkYgJ:www. foresight-network. eu/index. php%3Foption%3Dcom_docman%26task%3Ddoc_view%26gid%3D352+Economic+Implications+on+Social+Media&hl=en&gl=ke&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShixNJSG5ddAxmDsp3_H0NmsZ-LetSdSeKnGykkb0y_4ruRrW-EstMaeGHfs16v1u66MJlBbpW-WIgVRxtCabedvJWeojTeW4mfj7Z70xD-y31hAWGz7VhQwakzAylysKUUV0NN&sig=AHIEtbRbStc-eBG_GjfGNgsEL-OmZ0oP8g Taylor, D. , (2009). What’s the impact of social media on business growth? Retrieved on 26th July 2010 from; http://www. intuitive. com/blog/impact_of_social_media_twitter_facebook_business_growth. html